"I Was Unceremoniously Dumped At Tabokoto"

The Independent (Banjul)
NEWS
June 28, 2004
Posted to the web June 28, 2004

By Alieu Darboe
Banjul

Since Lamin Waa Juwara was released from Mile Two after a six-month
incarceration, he has been explaining how he was whisked away from the
prison compound and unceremoniously denied access to his supporters and
sympathisers who were at the prison gate to welcome him back to freedom.

Juwara who is NDAM's secretary general told The Independent that he was
taken away by state security agents who were with special orders to prevent
him meeting with those waiting to receive him as he tasted his first breath
of freedom in six months.

The NDAM leader said he had enthusiastically looked to making what he
called a symbolic walk out of the prison compound to meet his supporters
who had suspended their important engagements to meet him. He said to his
consternation he was told that he was to be escorted in a vehicle out of
the prison precinct and speeded off to what was at that time an unknown
destination to him. The former Niamina West Parliamentarian, who looked fit
and sturdy despite being put out of circulation for six months, said he was
unceremoniously dumped at Tabokoto by his security escorts who drove back
towards the direction of Banjul and left him almost stranded. According to
him, he had later negotiated his way home in Brikama where NDAM officials
and members of the opposition coalition were waiting to greet him.

"My immediate plan was to meet my people, party supporters and coalition
officials at the prison but for some petty reasons this was prevented by
the guards who it was clear did not want me to meet them there and then"
Juwara explained.

Mr. Juwara said his message after his time in prison remains the same as
the one before his conviction, which is that The Gambia needed to be saved
from what he called the "brutal clutches of despots" whose only interest is
to destroy this country.

He said the only answer to the country's problems was the coalition, to
which he emphasised his full backing.

Suma Jallow his wife said she is inextricably tied to the crusade her
husband was fighting against the "enemies of progress" who will go out of
their way to victimise her otherwise progressive-minded husband, who has
demonstrated in more ways than one that he was ready to sacrifice himself
for the country's future. She said ordinary Gambians are bearing witness to
some of the most brutally harsh economic realities they had to live with in
recent years and blamed the APRC regime for doing more to aggravate
political divisions than mend them.

A group of NDAM supporters who converged at their leader's residence in
Brikama said the popularity of their leader has soared markedly after his
incarceration, which they still hold epitomised the naked abuse of power by
those who don't know how to use it. "Our message to them is that they are
swimming against the tide of history. Nothing can stop our onward march to
political glory in the democratic platform. The fact that our leader was a
political prisoner showed the extent of our preparedness to continue with
the struggle to free this country from political misdirection and
oppression" one of them added.

Juwara was jailed for six months after his story in The Independent in
October was held to have been seditious. He had called for a mass protest
by Gambians against mounting economic hardships, which he blamed on the
APRC regime.

Meanwhile The Independent has reliably learnt that coalition officials left
for Jarra Saturday to lend weight to the campaign for Kemeseng Jammeh's bye-
election bid for the constituency seat, which was rendered vacant after the
conviction of disgraced ruling party politician Baba Jobe for economic
crimes against the state.


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